@leszek Since you have refocused your development efforts to Netrunner, I have a related question for you. What is the best way to keep software and drivers up-to-date on a Debian-based distro? With Maui and other Ubuntu-based distros I am used to using PPAs, but it seems such a thing isn't officially supported or recommended for Debian.

Why? For Kubuntu my experience is that its developers/development are/is dependable.
I used it several years before trying Netrunner.
Netrunner was cancelled cause they started Maui which was soon killed again because because.
KDE neon - which seem to have appeared just around the time frame Maui went absolete is Kubuntu based anyway and the devs to my knowledge are the same involved.

In terms of reliability the time i spent here - the distributions are not a good choice for productive use.
If you want to tinker, reinstall, switch every now and then and want/need to use latest KDE as soon as possible- go for Neon.
If you want a system that keeps working, is fairly up to date and isn't depending on the daily devs flavour swings - in my opinion you should stick to the distributions that already have some time on their clock.

So basically its a subjective decision. Good to have choices for everyone.

Truly, I started on Kubuntu. Only migrated to Maui because Maui did have a slightly better experience for me and I liked that it had some NEON base. Since the uncertainty of Maui I've moved back to Kubuntu and it is still as strong as ever. Just my opinion but it is really a top-notch OS.